


Nails That Stick Out

by grimBleeper_Arcas_Corricol



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternian Empire, Ancestors, Archeradicators, Conspiracy, F/F, F/M, Just A Little Bit of Swearing, M/M, Ninja Psychic Space Pirates, Prison, Psionics, Really Bad Fish Puns, Sensory Deprivation, Slightly More Regular Space Pirates, Subjuggulators, Superpowers, Time Travel, cavalreapers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-05-01 17:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5213768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grimBleeper_Arcas_Corricol/pseuds/grimBleeper_Arcas_Corricol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An alternate history AU where the canon events are severely altered and characters are very different to who most people think they are. Effectively a prologue to what’s going to happen next. As a prologue, it’s going to mostly be the account of the dancestors’ adventures and tribulations.</p>
<p><em>What’s happening? It looks like an endless plane of darkness where I’m the only inhabitant, everything is black, it just goes on and on as far as I can see.<em></em></em><br/>…<br/><em>“GO FU-“ I feel a stabbing pain right above my bloodpusher and my head tilts backward as my back arches. “AAAAAARGH!”<em></em></em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>  And that’s only the Signless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Signless

**Author's Note:**

> First chapter is going to be a very different version from the Sufferer’s story, this one is specifically right before and during his execution. Have fun! :::D

I was born as free as my civilisation would permit, but now, at the end of my life, at the doorstep to my impending execution, I am lead to the arena in chains. Heh, so just like when I was born.

The room that I’m in is dark, as all dungeons are. The barest dregs of sunlight slide between the bars, allowing me to barely make out where I am. But I know where I am, a special prison of the Condesce’s specifically for political prisoners, for people who the Condesce considers a very high priority in who she wants to kill. And these kills are never pretty.

I know exactly how many days it has been since I was captured. Six days since I was defeated at my last stand. Today is the seventh day and I know that it will also be my last on this mortal coil. They obviously spared no expense with my accommodations, giving me a flea infested cot, the thinnest of wheat porridges, a toilet which most likely contains mosquito larvae. It’s all very methodically miserable and bleak but by now, it only seems petty and amusing to me. Living like this isn’t exactly too big a change from when I was on the run from the imperial forces.

There is a door at the end of my room, the one that leads into a twisting and turning labyrinth which will eventually open up underneath the execution arena. The tunnels never stop. Four guards are always posted outside my door and I know that 2 more stand by the grate that I like to call a window. As a prisoner I’m not supposed to escape and I’m not going to. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. I’m a damn good leader but I’m only an above average fighter, I don’t even have my sickles with me for this. I have not interacted with the guards much, the most is when they dragged me here and unceremoniously deposited me into my current abode. Apart from this, they deliver my daily, correction, last meals. A hatch can be slid open from the outside to deliver whatever the Condesce sees fit that I receive.

I get on my knees on the cold stone floor before extending my legs one by one backwards while shifting my weight onto my arms. Leaning my body parallel but not touching the ground. I push back up, feeling my muscles roll along with the motion. I can feel my triceps bulging as I lower myself and the muscles around my back and ribs tighten. A steady rhythm forms itself; the sound of my ragged pants hitting the floor is soon joined by the noise of slightly strained breathing. It’s a poor substitute for real meditation but it gets the job done. I let my mind clear itself before allowing it to wander about on its own. Memories flash by, the embrace of a guardian, the caress of a lover, the feeling of proximity when next to a brother; a sense of vertigo almost overtakes me as I delve too deep into those memories. I really hope that they are still alive, I know they don’t want to see me die but I guess that I’m selfish that way, I don’t want to see them die either.

 

The rest is a haze; time always finds a way to mess with memories. My head jerks up from my sitting position when someone knocks at the door, no, slams at it. I see the new bulges in the metal screen, rough shaped like a fist. I guess it isn’t one of the guards, they’re too well disciplined and have too much restraint for this, even with their great strength, the Condesce expects them to be civilised so that they can control everyone, even herself. Not that that stops her from slaughtering those that try to stop her anyways. The door is wrenched to the side by a black and white claw, stained with the traditional mineral paint of a subjuggulator. The subjuggulator easily dwarfs the guards, moving in a jerky manner like a puppet or an ancient automaton.

The subjuggulator ducks underneath the doorframe and when he moves past it, he stays hunched over though not enough to prevent his horns from scratching grooves into the ceiling. The subjuggulator’s wild hair spikes and curls around the base of his horns and looks like it goes down to his shoulder blades. Subjuggulators are a cult dedicated to the worship of their mirthful messiahs and their servants, obscure figures who appear in both history and mythology. Evidence supports and contradicts their existence simultaneously and though the Condesce stamped out those following what she considered false idols, she begrudgingly allowed the Grand Highblood and his subjuggulators to join her empire after a few thousand massacres.

Now, as loose agents of the empire, they are free to wander where they may and they are fully permitted to act upon their capricious whims. Sometimes they wander through a town, whistling a merry tune and conversing lightly with a town governor before sauntering off to do whatever they want. Other times they leave smoking ruins behind them while they track rivers of sticky polychromatic blood in their wake, that of their victims and their own. They can be summarised as psychotic clown berserker priests, their position in our society means that at any time they can be war clerics, preachers, or the embodiment of the harlequin spirit.

The subjuggulator that stands before me is of a deep purple blood caste, his blood colour evident on his clothes and in his eyes. His forearms are immensely thick and everything about him seems disproportionate. His gigantic horns have been dyed black and the light reflecting off them makes them seem even more disconcerting. The similarities between him and the Grand Highblood are remarkable but this only means that this is a high ranking subjuggulator, probably serving directly beneath the Grand Highblood. Furthermore, he wears different face paint, one which has half a smile and half a frown; his eyes are painted over with a straight band of black instead of outlining them. The sclera, however, are a dark orange.

He opens his mouth and closes it before raising a hand to grip his jaw and he turns it from side to side, eliciting a cracking noise of protest from it. Sharp teeth peek over his lips as he does so, the points are filed to a point and look like they could have shredded through the door. They gleam a bright white.

“Salutations, heretic.” he booms. His voice makes the room seem to shake and my whole body vibrate, he doesn’t appear to be trying anything apart from talking otherwise I would have the immense urge to cower and scream. If he was trying something, I wouldn’t know if I was screaming from fear or pain. Though I still want to run, I look him in the eye.

“Your spirit remains unbroken, that is fortunate.” His eyes flicker up and down as he looks me over.

I don’t say anything, not in fear but in surprise. It is rare that a subjuggulator speaks in such formal tones; their feral screams and shouting are their preferred methods of communication. Apart from summary execution of course.

“Please speak; your voice will be required in the immediate future.” There’s a feeling of barely restrained tenseness when he speaks, like he wants to scream and shout but is forcing himself to be bored, to try and act in a civil manner. He’s not a mindless beast like the others or maybe he’s better at pretending to be something that he’s not.

“And why would that be?”

“Thank you for complying; the Grand Highblood received a message from our messiahs that asked him to confirm that you will be well enough when it comes for you to join your heretics in death. After all, there is no punishment in death without pain.” His voice is even, almost philosophical. From any sane troll, this tone would be reserved for discussing much more mundane things.

“Will that be all?” Though this highblood is my enemy, I can’t afford to bear him any ill will, I reserve my emotions for those I care for and I can’t afford to be bothered with manners anymore.

“It is customary for us, the truth speaker and the heretical criminal, to speak before your execution. It is my duty to let you know that death comes for us all and that being a heretic shortens your allotted time in this realm. Your sins have been marked down and they will not be forgiven. You are not forgiven.” His voice remains even but his intention is clear, it screams of someone trying to demoralise another but it isn’t working and it won’t work. I’ve thought this over for too long.

The subjuggulator bows his head before turning around and heading out the door. The door is shut behind him and his footsteps soon fade as he walks away. It shouldn’t be long before I follow him. Soon it will be time for my execution. I let my head tilt back and rest against the wall, I stare at the ceiling as the seconds tick by and my mind starts to fold back into itself.

 

I’m woken from my trance when I hear the door being slid open again. Through heavily lidded eyes, I see another subjuggulator, smaller than the one before but his expression is more maniacal. Fire-like symbols are painted over his eyes and markings resembling water droplets are painted beneath his eyes and over his mouth. The guards shut the door once he’s stomped in.

“Wake the fuck up, motherfucker!” he yells, his voice carries the same tonal layering that the more berserk of the subjuggulators carry, simultaneously a guttural growl and a shriek. His mouth stretches into a grin as he sees my eyes flutter fully open. The primal fear his voice instils acts like an adrenaline shot, rousing me from my stupor and instantly putting me on fight or flight mode.

“Good! Now that you’re motherfucking awake, we can begin your final fucking rites! Now get the fuck up!” his screaming makes something in the back of my head ache but this subjuggulator feels more like an annoyance than a threat. He suddenly flashes forward, grabbing onto the collar of my rags before hauling me to my feet. “Motherfucker, I said get the fuck up and you will obey! Do. You. Fucking. Understand?” purple spittle flies from his mouth and into my face. I gasp in surprise, my fists ball beside me before I unclench them, I have an execution to attend and I don’t want to go in a body bag.

“I understand.” I wipe down my face with the sleeve of my shirt. The subjuggulator keeps his hand on my shirt, I’m pretty sure his claws have pierced the thin fabric by now.

He tears his hand away from my shirt, taking a chunk of cloth with him because he forgot to let go first. When he separates his fingers, I can clearly see little squares of fabric, each one looking like square rings around his fingers. “Good, now follow me closely or we begin the hunt early.” His voice becomes contemplative suddenly; this one is definitely not in control of his predatory urges. His claws start to flex as he walks, the claws jabbing into his palms and drawing blood. Streams of purple start running down his hands but he doesn’t seem to react to them. This subjuggulator’s blood seems to be bluer than the other one, he doesn’t wear any colour on his armour, just greys and blacks. Two guards follow me as I let the subjuggulator lead me down the hallway. The other two remain behind at the cell. Everything looks similar, the walls, ceilings, and floors are all a uniform grey.

The subjuggulator turns left around a corner and into a room, this one with faded colours all over the walls. Undoubtedly the blood of previous victims. The colours aren’t evenly distributed; some are streaks the width of an average body while others are just large circular sprays. Just the sight of me makes me want to retch but I keep my head up. The highest colour on the hemospectrum on these walls is a slightly bluer teal; I guess that anyone more “important” would have been taken to a different prison. But that’s assuming that the Condesce was even bothered to have them arrested. He goes to the centre of the room and sits cross legged on the mat laid there; he beckons for me to sit opposite to him. I reluctantly comply; the mat seems to be made of felt, a stark contrast with the concrete and blood. It might be the only clean thing in the room and it’s certainly the only thing in the room that isn’t coloured with blood.

“You have committed crimes against Alternia and her people. What say you in your defence?”

There it is. The routine line that every single one of the government goons says to initiate their proceedings. It’s almost a ritual when treating traitors and seditious rebels, his voice fluctuates in pitch as he recites the line. He expects me to answer so that he can interrupt me; it’s almost wriggler level immaturity. But before he gets the chance to cut me off, I speak first. “I have a few words that I have to say that you would like to hear since you asked so graciously.”

“That’s no-“he attempts to say, the pitch starts to get higher. I cut him off as the manic grin turns into a confused frown.

“Please do not interrupt me before I finish speaking. Now as you know, I am referred to as the Signless because I do not fit into your societal conventions. I was born an outcast and abandoned due to the lack of lusus willing to adopt me, this you should know from your extensive records.”

“What are you-“the confused subjuggulator manages to utter.

“What am I trying to do?” I do my best to imitate his tone. “I suggest that you SHUT UP AND LISTEN!” I shout; it’s not every day that you get to talk down a subjuggulator and if today is my last day then I’m going to have fun with it. “Now where was I? Oh, yes, I was busy trying to continue but a rude little piece of hoofbeast excrement just disturbed me.” I make sure to fix him a baleful glare as his jaw hangs open. “Despite every single one of our laws of nature saying that I should die, I didn’t. I grew up watching you and your kind torment us, I saw you murder us randomly; use our blood for your sick arts and paintings. You showed no remorse and in the end, you will get what is coming for you. But that is not my business; I am just spreading the message. Your messiahs, they will fall, your Grand Highblood, he will fall. Your belief, that will fall. And you will be the reason, your bonds are just those of madmen, giving in to your insanity and saying that you are similar, but that is why you are failures, because you are only saying that. You know nothing of true camaraderie, true brotherhood, and true unity. Unity found in chaos is not true unity. You speak of your mirthful messiahs with such high regard but they remain urban legends, no true god would be so widely disputed. You think I’m scared of you? I’m not, you’re just another troll wearing face paint and spouting your ramblings. You don’t scare me because you aren’t strong, you think you are but you really aren’t. Do you know what true strength is? Don’t answer; I want you to save your breath so you can spread my word to your so called brethren. It’s having people follow you not because you force them to but because they can see the wisdom in your words. You may be powerful in that you inspire terror to us quote unquote lowbloods, but no one cares about your beliefs and what you try to tell them because we don’t care about your messiahs. That is what makes you weak; your symbol of strength is just a ghost story. And we don’t fear it. Now go, run to your coven of fools and tell them of what you have heard, run along and be the slave that you have always been.” I take a deep breath after the monologue, looks like I forgot to take breaths in between sentences again. Porrim had always tried to remind me but I forgot from time to time anyways. She probably would have laughed along with my speech, the subjuggulator who got ranted into submission? Who had ever heard of that before? Heh, I hope that they’re safe; Mituna would have some kind of snide comment to make in this situation. I look back over at the subjuggulator’s face and his eyes have gone back to yellow instead of their usual feral orange hue. The pupils have shrunken to a very normal size. Even his hair looks less wild and more deflated if that word could even be applied.

“You speak of uncertainty to validate your point. You will be taken back to your cell to await execution.” Somehow his voice has become even, the uncontrollable vocal capriciousness has disappeared and has been replaced with a monotone. “Rise and we will escort you back to your cell.” His eyes seem to go hazy and he turns to look off into the distance as he stands. I watch as he opens the door and turns left, not even bothering to make sure I leave. The guards enter the room and stand on either side of me. I rise so that they don’t have to pick me up and begin the short walk back to my cell, seriously, even with only two of them, I’m not going to make it five steps before they crush me. As I turn right to where my cell was, I hear the mutterings of the faithless subjuggulator. “Brother, it is me.”

“Your eyes have taken on a heretical hue, what brings this change?” the voice sounds like the high subjuggulator, only this time he’s agitated.

“It concerns our faith, the tenets that we have preached all our life.”

“What of them? They stand strong because they are truth, they are the only truth.”

“Not anymore.”

“What. Happened? You will tell me what happened or, messiahs help me, your corpse will be the Grand Highblood’s new carpet.” The senior one screams, the other doesn’t speak until the echo dissipates. I can feel a headache coming, even without direct exposure; his chucklevoodoos are starting to affect me.

“The prisoner, the rebel. He speaks words which scream heresy but they enter my mind and form connections between ideas and noise. His tone does not linger like the rumbles and thunder of the Grand Highblood but they are a meticulous loop, they make me see my past self as the madness. It has convinced me to speak out. To speak out against you.” His voice cracks near the end, I wouldn’t have been able to speak at such a level of psychic pressure.

“And you wish to tell our fellow brothers of your new beliefs?” the voice growls. The unspoken threat hangs in the air, daring the enlightened subjuggulator to answer him.

“I do, it is the only truth, our messiahs do not exist.” The heretic gasps with every breath, his breathing becoming laboured as he struggles to hiss the words.

Silence hangs in the air, and I strain my ears to try and listen, I almost think that they just suddenly finished speaking. When he speaks again, the high subjuggulator screams in a feral growl. “So you are now a heretic?”

“I am not a heretic, my eyes have been opened and I see that we are all misguided!” he shouts back.

“You wish to spread your heresy, your seditious lies, you waste the life and honour given to you and you will walk this land no further.” I hear a thunderous slam, probably the lesser subjuggulator being pushed into the wall. The ground trembles at the impact. “Know this, you will be struck from the records, your name will be erased, and I will have a little talk with your friend.” He hisses in a low rasp. Though I’m now nearly at the door to my cell, I still manage to hear the snap of bone and then more cracking noises. A piercing scream floods down the corridor before ending abruptly. To their credit, the guards don’t even react, instead shoving me into my cell and locking the door, resuming their vigil. I rush to the side, making sure to get out of the way of the door. I really, really don’t want to die right now.

Before I even get a chance to sit down or hide, the door flies off from its hinges and past me. It clangs against the stone wall at the opposite end of the room before falling onto the floor. This time, the subjuggulator doesn’t even bother to duck, his horns just smash through the doorway, cleaving though the stone like a mediculler’s chainsaw through bone.

“On your feet, your execution has come early!” he bellows.

I stand up straight, he’s going to kill me and that’s it, so much for protocol. I can feel his intent, his burning hatred and rage. He lunges for me but I’m ready, instinct takes over as I duck to the side as soon as I see his arms reaching towards me. The sound isn’t unlike a grenade detonating, the cot is almost flattened into a pancake and his whole forearm has been thrust into the wall. In this moment, my analytic faculties come back.

2 weapons, 1 out of play. Time slows to a halt as I run through everything. Reach is enough to get me if I don’t run right now. I can’t take him alone. 4 guards outside. Allegiance to the Condesce and not the Grand Highblood. Plan is a go.

I end my dodge with a roll. My head snaps up as I kick off and sprint out the corridor, the guards are shouting into their communicators to call for backup even though the people manning surveillance would have put the upper levels into purple alert or whatever their code for “rampaging berserker clown” is. Two guards rush past me at the feral subjuggulator but one is instantly killed when the behemoth gets his arm out of the wall. He delivers a devastating blow to the guard who doesn’t even have a chance to get out of the way of the massive fist. I turn around to continue running before I feel arms constrict around my knees. I’m instantly swept up by muscular arms and hoisted into a bridal carry by one of the guards. He’s much faster than I am and it almost hurts to keep my eyes open, all the hallways just start to blur and my head starts to spin. My head smacks against the corner and my vision fades to black.

 

“Ugh” I groan as my consciousness returns, everything’s still a drab grey except for a black and blue clad figure kneeling beside me. I instinctively roll away from him but I end up flopping onto my stomach. “Son of a barkbeast” I mutter angrily.

“Be still” the blueblood commands “the high subjuggulator has not been detained yet. For your safety and the Condesce, you will remain hidden while this situation is being resolved.” He speaks in a deep monotone which warrants no argument. My vision refocuses and I spot his distinctive helm, one of an archeradicator. My heart starts to pound erratically; this isn’t any normal guardsman, this one of an elite group of the best guardsmen in the empire. He removes his hand from my shoulder before reaching behind his back and withdrawing a bow longer than my height.

I can hear the subjuggulator stomping up the corridor; the heavy breathing has become even more primal than before, it’s the sound of a completely wild animal.

“Stay” the blueblood whispers before nocking an arrow. The arrow looks like it’s leaking some black wispy substance, floating off the arrow before evaporating. “Go” he speaks into the communicator on his shoulder.

Red sparks emit from the ground just past where I lay prone. A crackle fills the air as it convalesces into a ball of energy which shoots out a thin beam into the corridor. I flinch at the zap and again at the following roar from when the subjuggulator gets hit. The ground trembles as the subjuggulator storms in our direction but the glare that the archeradicator is giving me tells me to stay down even when I want to flee. A purple and black blur zooms past our position and abruptly stops. The subjuggulator turns towards us, looks straight at us and I feel time slowing down again, my survival instincts kicking in.

Blue shield, I can make it a few steps before the enemy reaches me, damn it all to hell.

As the rush fades, a small figure suddenly appears and slashes at the subjuggulator’s thigh with a blade. I only catch the glint of light shining off it before the assailant fades away. The subjuggulator swings wildly at his surrounding, gouging chunks out of the walls haphazardly and spraying fragments of metal and plastic around him. The dust reveals the outline of his attacker and the subjuggulator lunges forward into a vicious headbutt. An involuntary gasp leaves my mouth but I’m more surprised at the fact that the subjuggulator still hasn’t noticed us. He only hits thin air, however, and this half moment of instable footing lets his aggressor reappear over at the side of the subjuggulator and delivers a quick cut straight through the subjuggulator’s leg. The severed limb falls backwards as the subjuggulator keels forward. The subjuggulator screams the whole way down, the walls shuddering and the now visible ceruleanblood staggers backward, clutching at her head.

The archeradicator seems unaffected as he rolls into the corridor to shoot an arrow straight into the fallen subjuggulator’s throat, the arrowhead seeming to punch a good few centimetres in. My mouth falls open as the shadows seem to flow from the archeradicator and over the face down subjuggulator, trapping him an opaque ebon prism. The subjuggulator collapses and I can only see his steady breathing, even his blood has stopped spraying out from the stump of his leg.

I’d never seen any of this, I had heard of the most powerful of the Condesce’s agents and how they were gods of combat against even the cavalreapers but I hadn’t expected them to have these, whatever they are. Powers? Mutations? I knew of the rarer psionic abilities and how they could bend minds and shape space to their whims but this was completely different. How did the female become invisible? If they were not psionics, what was the shadow that enveloped the subjuggulator? Nothing made sense at all, I couldn’t even move lest they turn on me.

The archeradicator spoke into his communicator again “All clear, much appreciated”; his tone seemed to make the situation normal, like this was a casual thing for him to do and that there wasn’t anything special about the abilities he just demonstrated. “Don’t move” he told me, it wasn’t like I could go anywhere.

The ceruleanblood wore a coat and a dress, both black with jagged lines of her blood colour running all the way down her clothing. Her hair seemed to be as untamed as the now mute subjuggulator’s, standing in stark contrast with the archeradicator’s completely straight, long hair.

“Greetings, Horuss. Did you really need backup?” she asked conversationally.

“I suppose not, it is good to see you however.” He bore a grin as he spoke to her.

“Indeed, do you have any orders concerning the unfortunate fellow over there?” she pointed over her shoulder at the murky rectangle.

“You? Wanting to know about my orders? My, my, how far the mighty Mindfang has fallen!” he joked.

“As a guest of the Condesce’s, I am bound to her will, truly she is a gracious host” she said with a knowing smile like it was some kind of in joke. “That and the fact that the Grand Highblood asked me to see to this personally. In much cruder words of course.”

“So legless Joe will be going into his care?” he tilted his head to the side as he asked.

“Yes, will you be there at the execution?” she asked ambiguously.

“He’s getting executed? I thought the Grand Highblood just tore them apart.” I could hear the confusion in this Horuss’ voice, a sense of wonderment and confusion.

“No, your little ward over there.” She pointed at me, confirming my suspicions.

“Then my answer is yes. On the topic of him, I need you to do something.”

“I take it that my talents are in high demand?”

“Yep, we’re going to need to wipe his memories for a bit, all part of the Condesce’s plans.” He sang the last part, almost mocking the will of their master.

“I suppose I can trust your discretion, Meenah’s got some explaining to do though.” She sighed. “Can you knock him out first, I mean, it’s funny and all that he’s been listening to everything that we’ve been saying but he really needs to get wiped if what you’re saying is true.”

“Mhm. Don’t worry, Sufferer, all will be explained in good time.” He said with a kind smile.

This was all a dream, that was the only way any of this could be explained; I must have imagined all of this. People forget dreams when they wake, I’ll probably forget all of this, now let’s fade back awake, shall we? The voice in my mind sounded like mine and everything went dark again as I followed its suggestions.

 

The first thing I feel when I wake is the cold metal binding my hands. I jerk at it but it doesn’t break, I angle my head upwards and I can see a stake stabbed straight through the middle link and into the post. I grunt as I pull harder but then I suddenly stop, wait, what’s happening, why can’t I hear myself? The chains make no noise even when they should clink. I open my mouth and scream but sound doesn’t come out. No no no no no no, am I dead? What’s happening? It looks like an endless plane of darkness where I’m the only inhabitant, everything is black, it just goes on and on as far as I can see. This must be how they’re torturing me, I’ve already reacted too much, they won’t get anything else out of me. I let my head hang as I go exploring my memories again, I won’t let them break me, they won’t, they can’t, I can’t. Another voice joins me in the chanting, Meulin’s. It feels like she’s standing right beside me and she is in a way, whatever this is, it won’t separate us, I can feel her presence even though I can’t see her and that’s all I need. She’s always with me in my heart. I can feel everyone else emerging one by one but Meulin’s voice is the clearest and now I know that it’s impossible for me to lose, I know what I’m fighting for.

The voices quickly fade into the sudden screaming and yelling as my senses flood back into existence. The arena is brightly lit and from this angle, I don’t think I have a shadow at all. I lift my head and the crowd quietens down, these are trolls, this must be the afterlife, do they seek vengeance for my leading them to their deaths? Are they here to escort me to whatever place that they have judged me to deserve?

My musings are cut short as a familiar figure walks towards me, closely followed by a train of others of varying castes and appearances.

At the back is a cerulean blood, her garb suggests that her domain includes the oceans and probably interplanetary warfare; nothing suggests that she’s an ally of the empire but the fact that she’s present. She walks in a careful but relaxed way, her eyes flicker around and take in the crowd but she doesn’t seem to be excited or dismissive of them, just uncaring. Her arms are folded behind her back in a way that exudes confidence and superiority.

The next one is a purple blood, he wears a black cape with purple trim, the collar is raised to cover the sides and back of his neck. My eyes freeze as they lock onto his face, I know who he is. Orphaner Dualscar, a “privateer”, a sanctioned criminal. He’s a raider of the land, seas, and however many planets. A mass murderer and the architect of more than a few genocides, most successful. He’s deliberately averting his eyes from the ceruleanblood; instead, he’s waving at the crowd. He doesn’t get a reaction from them; they’re too busy paying attention to the others.

Then there are the two trolls flanking the Condesce. To her left is an archeradicator, his helmet and goggles make it impossible to determine which of the Condesce’s personal guard and most trusted generals this one is. The rest of his armour is a mixture of alloy plates and some kind of fabric which lies underneath the plates.

I bare my teeth in a snarl when I see who is to the Condesce’s right. A massive troll who dwarfs every single other being in the vicinity. Though it looks like he’s wearing a bodysuit, it’s actually full bodypaint. The only thing skin-tight about it is his skin. The Grand Highblood towers over the others, even the archeradicator. A wicked grin is painted over his mouth and his eyes glow orange, the way that his eyes recolour themselves constantly makes them emulate fire, looking him in the eye emulates being burned alive as the legend goes.

The foremost troll is still the most fearsome, her Imperial Condescension, the Empress. There were those who claimed that she was incredibly short but seeing her in person completely debunks that rumour. She looks to be of above average height, I guess the rumour comes from the fact that she’s always flanked by really tall trolls. Her ridiculously large mane of hair manages to be even larger than the Grand Highblood’s and nearly reaches the height of the archeradicator’s horns. She’s the only one bearing arms out of her entourage, a simple gold-coloured 2x3dent she carries with her left hand and it lies crossed behind her back. It’s so long that even at a diagonal, it reaches over her head. She suddenly looks straight at me and a wide smile spreads across her face. She raises two fingers before pointing forward, beckoning something from behind her.

Oh. My. Fuck. My jaw drops open as I watch Meulin, Porrim, and Mituna get dragged along, the ceruleanblood holds each of their chains.

“You piece of-“ I begin.

The archeradicator raises his hand and I can’t hear myself or the crowd anymore. The only sound that I can hear is their footsteps. They fan out into a different formation, the Condesce and her archeradicator at the front while the others stand behind them with one prisoner each in front of them kneeling.

The ceruleanblood stands behind Porrim with her hands on her shoulders; I would have believed that she would be trying to comfort Porrim if not for these circumstances. Porrim’s head hangs down, jade tears dripping down her face and onto her dress. Something in my heart starts hurting when I see her crying.

Dualscar is anything but gentle with Mituna, holding a fistful of Mituna’s hair as he forces Mituna to watch, Mituna seems to be trying to scream something but he’s probably being silenced too, this is becoming incredibly enraging, isn’t it enough that they’ve captured and are parading us? Now they’ve got to somehow stop us from even speaking?

At the end, the Grand Highblood is simply holding onto the chain which connects to the metal collar around Meulin’s neck. Meulin seems to be straining in my direction but the Grand Highblood keeps her in pace. I scream harder when I see this, a rage overtakes me as I just want to get my hands on that stupid subjuggulator and rip his horns out and stab them into his eyes. My vision starts to go red around the edges until the Condesce raises her hand again; the ceruleanblood’s eyes flash bright blue before dimming down again. I feel my wrath fading as quickly as it had arrived.

“’Sup beaches, we’re all gathered here today for a very, very, special event. We all know that I krill every single basshole who tries a little uprising or rebellion against me, but just in case you’ve forgotten, here’s a breaminder. This is the Signless, a redblood. But he isn’t just any redblood, Executor.” The Condesce announces, her voice is very colloquial; no pretence of sophistication is needed when everyone knows who she is.

The archeradicator strides forward before laying his hand on my shoulder. I thrash and writhe as all sensation within my body disappears, not a numbness but a feeling of nothingness. I know I’m moving because I can see it but I can’t feel myself moving, I’m trapped in a loop of sensory deprivation. I catch a glimpse of my own blood and stop twisting around. The Executor has cut several lines across my body, shallow wounds which are carefully made only to draw blood. Something’s definitely wrong because I know I should be able to feel the flow of blood, how it leaks from perforated skin, the feeling of my blood pouring down my skin. The faces of the spectators are twisted into masks of shock and horror, unable to comprehend my unique blood colour.

“The Signless is a mutant!” the Condesce laughs “Your little leader, this little guppy who promised you that he would break the blood caste system? He only said that because he’s outside it. He’s not one of you, he’s some sort of alien! Now, remember what happened to all those aliens that we’ve encountered over the centuries? That’s right. They die. Because they all make one key mistake. They go up against me.” The Condesce accentuates her words by slamming the 2x3dent against the floor, eliciting loud clangs every single time.

The crowd starts screaming and yelling, spurred on by the words of the Condesce. She grins triumphantly at me and the outrage directed at me.

“You lied!” A voice in the crowd shouts. “Fuck off, mutie!” Another screeches.

Everything gets tuned out as I hang my head in shame; it hurts to have all my teachings forgotten in an instant. Everything that I built up just crashed down in those few seconds. I look back up to my family and they’re crying as well, but not at me, for me. They were the ones who stuck with me through everything and it’s half relieving that they’re still with me and half soul crushing seeing them hurt.

“Any last words, worm?” the Condesce sneers, she points her 2x3dent at me

Aha, ahaha, ahahahahahahaheh. It’s almost like a moment of clarity; I guess it is because it’s just me and my thoughts. I get to say one last thing and I can say whatever I want? That’s fun; I haven’t done that in a while. I almost forgot what it felt like. Now that I mention it, I do have a few choice words for this kinda situation. I let myself smile toothily, it feels unnatural but that also happens to be how I’m feeling right now.

“Yeah, I got few hundred.” Deep breath, let’s go. “I’d like to thank my guardian, Porrim, for raising me to be the upstanding troll that I am today. Mituna for being a swell guy to talk to. And Meulin for being my everything. But I’ve got one more person to thank and that’s you, Condesce. I’m going to thank you for letting me speak to _your_ people one last time. Yeah, I’m a mutant, but y’know, who gives a flying _fuck_. Because I certainly don’t. I have the same grey skin, I have the same black hair, I have the same horns as you all do but noooooo, that’s not good enough for you, is it? So how about this, in my pocket, there’s a little thing that I call, how do you say, GO FUCK YOURSELF. I know it might be hard to comprehend but I want all of you shitbrained panhumpers to get on my level before you go CHOKE ON A BULGE. So the moment that you find out that I have a blood colour 10 degrees off the lowest redblood you turn on me? That’s great, we totally didn’t have a talk about camaraderie and loyalty to the cause of freedom, nah, we just sat around, drank tea, and did absolute FUCK ALL. How about I teach you assholes something before I die, hmm? I want you to remember this for the rest of your life, not ready? Shut the fuck up. Calling it right the fuck now, you want to fucking know what’s going to happen, simple, we’re all going to fucking die! Aww, did I just shit all over your immortality promenade? Well how about you suck it up and let me tell you that you’re also going to spend the rest of your worthless fucking lives being stupid sacks of shit and live out the rest of your days being completely stupid. Is that too much of a revelation? So you idiots can either choose to fucking stay dirt and hoofbeast shit, or you can actually take your lives into your own hands and do something, because fuck knows that you didn’t listen to me and you at least tried to not listen to the Condesce.” I bring my gaze back to the Condesce but whatever reaction I was expecting, genuine amusement definitely wasn’t it. “One last thing, hey Condesce! GO FU-“ I feel a stabbing pain right above my bloodpusher and my head tilts backward as my back arches. “AAAAAARGH!” It feels like hours upon hours of white hot pain before my head slumps down, the last thing I see is an arrow with shadows leaking off from it.


	2. The Handmaid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> keep in mind that this story takes its own timeline and rips it apart with blender. i can't promise that i can make a temporally correct story due to not bothering to add dates to each scene. if you wanted to, i could make a timeline for this BUT only after i have finished this prologue.  
> anyways, this one's about some of the events that the Handmaid participates in.

He screams for a good while before going limp, this troll who will have so much impact in the future but will not get to see it. It’s a fascinating spectacle, the Condesce hasn’t had an execution with this large an audience since, well, ever. Look at them, this raving crowd that screams for blood, so excited to see someone get killed. The Signless tried to unite these kinds of people but I think it’s funnier that they can only stand together to see him die.

Even as his head slumps, the throng of trolls still call for more of this. But I know I’m done, the Signless has been killed, my mission’s over. I bow my head and let the hood cover up my face as I push through the frenzied trolls. As I exit the arena, I accidentally bump into someone and my hood comes off.

He’s some random troll, some brownblood who’s in the wrong place at the wrong time. I let myself fall backwards onto the ground, pretending to look bewildered at him. He reaches down to give me a hand up and I accept. His claws are cut down; the skin on his palms callused probably from weapons training.

“Sorry, you ok down there?” he asks, a worried expression on his face. Poor guy, he really shouldn’t have done that. Fate’s fate I guess.

I delve into his mind, suppressing his thoughts as I take hold of them. “Walk.” I hiss.

The brownblood complies, to any other, it would look like we’re just walking together, maybe we’re flushed, any other troll wouldn’t be able to tell who I really am or what I was here to do. The hallway’s quiet and dark, perfect. I lead him into a bathroom and once we’re in, I make sure to close the door silently.

I whip out my needles before stabbing them fluidly into his throat. He emits a gurgle as the air tries to go around his blood. I put the palm of my hand on his face and push until the needle comes back out soundlessly, slick with brown blood. I let the body slump down in a corner before putting my hand to his eyes. I shut his eyelids and wipe down my needles on his shirt before stowing them beneath my dress. There’s a bit of blood on one of my shoulders from when I withdrew my needle. Disgusting. I feel my eyes flash red and blue as the molecules are levitated off and into wherever the momentum carries them, my shoulder feels tingly but I know it’ll go away.

Ugh, looks like it’s time to back, I look around and make sure that there aren’t any witnesses before making a cutting motion with my hand through the air. A portal just taller than I am appears in front of me and I step in.

 

I appear on the Doctor’s balcony, the atmosphere on this moon is unique in that there is no atmosphere. If he’s such an excellent host as he likes to say he is then why hasn’t he learnt to accommodate for us, asshole. My psionics instinctively kick in and shroud me in energy so that I don’t suffer any effects of depressurisation. The field instantly collapses once I walk into the building. The Doctor stands with his arms crossed behind his back, a jar of cookies lies on top of the counter next to him but we both know they’re not for me.

“How did your errand go?” a voice blooms from within my head, as soon as it finishes, it repeats itself at a lower volume. It feels like we’re talking inside a tunnel.

“The Signless lies dead by the Executor’s hand and the Condesce’s order. His breath has stopped and I could not detect anything from within him. He is as dead as possible, at least with the abilities available to the Condesce.” I answer. I know he knows what I know but he expects me to tell him what he already knows.

“I know,” there it is “I just needed to tell me what I already knew.” I can’t see if he’s smiling at my blind obedience but I know he’s going to laugh that shitty laugh next. “Ha ha, hee hee, hoo hoo.” Fucking dammit. “Well done, I have your next mission.”

“What is it?” I ask, I don’t let my annoyance seep into his voice, it’ll only mean that he knows that he’s won. But then again, he probably fucking knows it anyways.

“While the Condesce presently knows us, she does not in the past. You were not even born when she received first contact from us. Today, you will close this loop. Well, today for you at least, it will be centuries in the past for her. If you have any questions, please direct them to the past me, I will answer you as well as I can. Off you pop, I know you will return so there is no need for me to wish you luck.” He says vaguely.

I’ve seen this event already; I’ve probably watched the fight multiple times in my spare time so I know exactly what to do.

I bow before walking out the door again. The Doctor doesn’t like portals inside the house. A soft melody replaces the silence; I focus on the tune before slowing it down. The music becomes distorted and gets stuck on one note. I start waving my needles like conductor’s batons and the music rewinds. It keeps speeding backwards until it abruptly stops, this is my destination. I make a cut with the needles and a different portal opens, this one with an orange aura which gets redder as the energy gets further from the gap in the time-space continuum. I tuck my needles away before entering the rift.

 

The air is thick with the scent of blood when I step out. The throne room of the previous empress is filled with corpses and when I arrive, it is just in time to see the Condesce send the previous ruler off in chains. A corpse is suspended by an arrow straight through his sternum, his head has lolled to one side. Blood leaks from his throat and coalesces into a slowly expanding teal pool below his feet. None of the people seem to notice my entry so I stay in the shadows, waiting for them to finish. Three key trolls stand by the Condesce’s side as she kicks a corpse away; it smashes against a stone wall before slumping to the ground. The Doctor wouldn’t like to see this, too dirty, the blood everywhere isn’t helping either. Maybe if it was lime green.

The Condesce says something that I’m not bothered to listen to while I’m not paying attention and two of her retinue nod at it but this is enough to break my train of thought. The ceruleanblood and the purpleblood, Mindfang and Dualscar, follow the deposed empress down the stairs. The Condesce laughs at something that she’s saying, gesturing wildly while recounting what was probably a very quick fight with her defeated foe to the Executor. He nods obediently at what she has to say but otherwise stands as still as a statue, his face impassive like one too. This goes on for a while, not so much a conversation as a monologue, none of the three people left in the room show any signs of boredom, it’s my first time in a while to get to see a mass murder.

A blip goes off of my mental map when I sense that Mindfang and Dualscar have left the building. Now the fun starts, I dust off my dress just in case before stepping into the light.

The Executor immediately notices me and turns towards me, bow in hand and arrow at the ready. He’s noticeably less bulky than the last time I saw him, he hasn’t undergone the intense hormone and drug treatments that he will to make him a much more aggressive and dangerous soldier. His muscles are much more on the long and wiry side than the massive and bulky side. Make no mistake, he can still snap a troll’s spine by accidentally clapping them on the back lightly but he doesn’t have the ability to dissipate the higher levels of blunt force trauma through sheer strength. His armour is different from his execution armour, where his older one was much heavier and made to ignore enemy attacks so that he could either keep defending the Condesce or walk straight through enemy fire, this model is more suited to skirmishes, he doesn’t have as much protection but he makes up for it in the fact that the armour doesn’t hamper his movement as much. This allows him to duck from shadow to shadow and jump higher than most trolls. Knowing the future, I’m not allowed to kill him, this makes him a problem because I can’t just straight out stab straight through the eye and into his brain or disintegrate his head. I’ll get to that part when I get to it.

The Condesce continues with her cackling, not even bothered at the slightest by her bodyguard’s aggression.

“Ahem” I cough into my hand.

That gets the Condesce’s attention, she turns her neck and scowls at me.

“What do you want?” she asks, her mouth twisted in disgust.

“Congratulations on your victory, Meenah. I am here for a business proposition, my master has seen your coup and he would very much appreciate it if you were to enter his employ.” I say cordially.

The Condesce starts giggling, then chuckling, then she tips her head back and straight out guffaws, her whole body shakes as she wipes away a tear of laughter. “Heh, I’ll bite, who’s your master?”

“He goes by the name of Doctor Scratch.”

“And this “Doctor Scratch”” the Condesce makes air quotes as she tries to mimic my voice. “Wants to get me to do what he wants?”

“That is correct.” I answer absent-mindedly, I twirl one of my braids around my finger as I try to keep my eyes on the Condesce.

“Well you can just fuck right off, I’m in a good mood now so I’m going to give you a chance to leave. Go on, shoo.” The Condesce flicks her hand at me.

“You misunderstand, it is my master who is giving you the chance, I suggest you take it otherwise you are going to have a bad time if you keep going down this road.” Maybe she’ll understand a threat, I really hope she’ll fight, in fact, I know that this will be the thing that tips her into fighting me. Maybe she is really easily provoked, maybe she’s gullible, but her actions were locked into my timeline the moment that I saw them.

“Fine, have it your way. Y’know, you should have just accepted my chance ya dumb beach.” She snarls. The Condesce raises two fingers and swings them down to point at me.

Even before she completes the motion, I’m already making my move. I thrust my hand at the Executor, an invisible force slamming into him and ejecting him straight through the new hole in the wall. He tumbles out of sight and I can feel that he won’t be a problem for the remainder of this little skirmish. There’s probably a pile of hay or something down there to break his fall, I don’t pay too much attention however because there’s a slightly more pressing issue.

The Condesce leaps straight from her new throne and lunges at me, ready to thrust her 2x3dent at me the moment that she gets into range. I flick my wrist and feel time slowing down again, the Condesce’s still going ridiculously fast but I’m not finished yet. She seems to skim elegantly across the floor, defying gravity just to keep her momentum. I make small but quick steps backwards to the entrance of the room to avoid her 2x3dent. Time continues slowing down as I twirl my needles again and again, the Condesce just looks silly now.

I dash forward, spinning to the side when the Condesce swings her 2x3dent downwards, as it makes contact with the ground, I hop up to avoid the cracks in the floor from her swing. I land with one foot on the 2x3dent and stab straight at her with a needle, despite time being slowed down, she still manages to duck underneath it to return a jab to my gut. I keep my right foot planted on her weapon as I swivel on it to dodge her fist. She follows up by trying to move her leg around mine but I continue spinning so that she can’t pin me down.

Her eyes follow me the whole way, unblinking and fierce. I settle into a long stance and hold onto her hair. I can hear the tell-tale rumblings which come before her roar but I keep pulling until I can feel her being hoisted up into the air and forward into the wall. She tries to grab onto my hands as she flies off but her claws scratch harmlessly against my psionic armour. I can see her rolling into a position where she can kick off back at me once she recovers but I act before she lands. I pick up a corpse from the ground telekinetically before flinging it towards the Condesce, and another, and another. The limp bodies tumble head over heels as they fly through the air. Once the Condesce seems to be buried in corpses, I point a finger at the ceiling before swiping down, causing a chunk of marble ceiling to rip apart from the rest and thud straight into the pile like a meteor. Eh, she’ll live.

I push the massive rock away with my telekinetics before dragging the bodies off each other, correction, not bodies, mangled bloody pulps. There’s no sign of the Condesce, she obviously escaped, I look up just in time to see someone’s head fly at me. I raise a needle and a beam of multi-coloured light jets out from it and reduces the projectile to dust. I survey my surroundings slowly, making sure to cover any detail that my other senses can’t. I can feel her life force still in the room but I can’t see her directly, she’ll go for her 2x3dent just as she did in my preview of this battle.

Sure enough, when I turn to the 2x3dent, it’s gone already. I catch a glimpse of her pink and black bodysuit as she continues trying to run around me and keep out of my line of sight. I sigh in exasperation; I guess I’m not used to dealing with people who aren’t either omniscient or dead. I send a blast of majjyk at her fleeing form, the beam gouging out thick chunks of the wall and sending sparks flying. She keeps moving but I’m in the mood to prolong the fight so I keep the beam trained a few metres behind her, enough to keep her running but not enough to accidentally kill her. The Doctor would not be pleased if I did so. I charge up my other needle and slash it at her, sending a wave of otherworldly energy hurtling at her, she catches it coming at her out of the corner of her eye and jumps over it. I send another one high and she ducks under it. One aimed straight at where her torso will be gets her to drop to the floor and slide underneath it.

Admittedly, this is the most fun I’ve had in ages, I know this wraps up soon but I think I’ll savour it while it lasts. I charge up my telekinetics non-somatically so that she doesn’t see my final attack coming,

I let loose a second stream of energy right in front of her when she’s still running, honestly, it’s quite impressive that she’s lasted this long. While I lead her onwards in this deadly game, I finish my preliminary work, telekinetically cutting apart the foundations of the wall. I let her get in one more lap of the room before nodding and unceremoniously sending a whole wall to fall on her.

I bend down to make sure that she’s definitely restrained underneath the tonnes of stone before looking over at my handiwork. The sun’s just begun to set and the sky is reddish orange, the forest outside seems to be very lush, maybe the Executor fell into a bush. It’s a very serene view especially when combined with the fact that the wall was cut so neatly, not a single shard of metal or stone sticks out to blemish the smooth surface.

The throne room’s in even more disarray than when the Condesce finished her assault, holes punched through the walls, a new skylight, and that’s not even mentioning the wall sized window I’m looking at which doubles as a convenient waste receptacle. The Doctor definitely would not appreciate living here. He probably wouldn’t live here even if it was all green. However, no one’s forcing him to live here and I at least like it. I let go of my grip on the timestream while I look out at my new Alternian base. It’ll do with a bit of renovation.

“Hey! Let me the fuck up so I can rip your fucking eyes out!” the Condesce screams from underneath the collapsed architecture.

“I’m not letting you do anything until you agree to discuss this in a civilised manner.” I say diplomatically. Meh, it’s violent diplomacy but that’s still a type of diplomacy.

“Like hell I am! You can go fuck yourself!” the wall starts to tremble as the Condesce tries to get up. This could be troublesome if she escapes again, while I know that I won’t let her, just in case I’m wrong, I push down on the giant slab to ensure her continued tenure underneath a wall...

“That’s not very civilised.” I chastise, I can wait here all day but I doubt that she has the patience to.

“Fucking hell.” She mutters. “What the fuck did you want?”

“The good Doctor would like you to work under him.” I say as I start juggling two pebbles in one hand.

The Condesce crawls out from the mound before sitting down with her 2x3dent by her side. “What do I get from this little arrangement?”

“I don’t kill you, you will also gain access to our information reserves which include everything on this planet, everything that has happened on this planet and everything that will happen on this planet. It’s a good package. I suppose this will let you run your little empire much more efficiently.” I’ve definitely got the Condesce’s attention now. Her greed for power really knows no bounds.

“How about that sparky thing, ain’t no psionic that I’ve seen before that could do that.”

“That comes after centuries of service, while you have not earned it, the information given to you will let you create your own if you choose to do so. “

“And what does your Doctor want me to do in return? Not like I’m getting this all for free, am I?”

She’s got a good point there. “Come with me to see the Doctor and I suppose you can draw up an agreement with him yourself. Remember to behave yourself within his house and I won’t have to kill you. Also, under no circumstances will you disturb or destroy anything unless you really want to piss him off.”

When I reach out, I can feel the pulse of the music again, no change in the speed or the tune despite my messing with it not a minute ago. It picks up as I direct an imaginary orchestra frantically, the pitch climbs and I start losing track of what is playing before it slows back down when it finds the time period which I came from. A few changes in mental imagery and I’ve reconstructed the Doctor’s balcony.

“We will leave via portal and I will return you here when you have concluded your dealings with my master. You will return approximately two seconds after we have left. “ I say over my shoulder.

The Condesce just stands impatiently, tapping her foot as she waits. “Yeah, yeah, let’s go.”

I step aside to reveal a glowing reddish orange rift before gesturing for the Condesce to enter. She seems reluctant to go in but walks up to it anyways before vanishing. I take one last look at the place before joining her.

 

The Condesce doesn’t even react to the lack of air; she just waits for me to open the door for her so that she can enter the Doctor’s mansion. She seems unfazed by the Doctor’s odd design choice and doesn’t say anything about it. There’s a note taped to the door, I pull it down to get a better look at it. Your next mission is on a note in your room, please send our guest up to me before embarking on your journey. Regards, Doc. Scratch. Luckily, it’s a post-it note so the white text is still readable over the yellow paper. I never understood why he put sticky tape over something which already included an adhesive but he’s odd like that.

“Down this corridor and to the left, keep walking straight and you will eventually see an open door to your right. There is where my master awaits you.” I say helpfully, if she’s anything like me then she’ll get lost the first few times that she’s here. I walk her down the hallway before turning right and up a staircase to my room. Another post-it note is stuck onto my door. The orders for your next mission will be on your bedside table. Regards, Doc. Scratch.

Sure enough, the note’s on my table I quickly slash through the sticky tape before picking it up. A muscle in my jaw clenches as the note unfolds and unfolds. It reaches the floor but keeps revealing new tasks. This is gonna suck. No use putting it off when I have all the time in the world to get things done, first thing on the list is … Kill the Signless’ lusus. Great.

 

Getting to the lusus enclosure isn’t the hard part, its location is public knowledge and there are very few people watching over it. The hard part is going through most of the enclosure just so I can find the one stupid overgrown crab. Seriously, it stinks of shit and everywhere I go, there are screaming albino monstrosities yearning for their wards even before they’ve been allocated to one. A capybara lusus screeches at me as I walk past, rearing up on its hind legs to scratch at the cage. I quicken my pace so that the guards don’t discover me, I know I’m not supposed to kill them and I doubt that I’m allowed to go wipe the video recording devices on their suits. I continue down the row, carp, cats, chinchillas, cod, corgi, Cornish game hen, cows, there we go.

The crab enclosure only has one occupant, lonely little crabdad. He seems to react similarly to the other lusii, raving and being generally unsociable and I make sure to take a mental snapshot before focusing on his head. I slowly apply pressure and I can see it building up within the hard chitin shell. Crabdad starts screaming in pain. A little more of a push and the shell starts cracking, blue blood already spraying out in little jets. One more little psionic tap sends the whole thing into oblivion, fragmenting into shards of shell and fleshy membrane from underneath.

No doubt the guards heard the commotion. I can feel five trolls converging on my location to see what happened to one of their precious lusii but I’m already swishing my needles through the air, ready to portal to whatever’s next on my list.

 

I quickly split my gargantuan list of tasks into two separate categories: Kill/Destroy and Capture. Crossing off the Signless’ lusus, I go over to the capture list, they’re probably going to be the easiest The highest priority on that list is the kidnap of a grub, once again, the task itself is simple enough but the stipulation of not being allowed to incur any collateral damage makes this much harder. I guess this is one of the few times that I’m glad my clothes have the green lines running down them despite being a rustblood. I shrug on a hooded cloak and walk into the entrance. The jadebloods hurry around, brimming with determined energy. The jadebloods are woefully undermanned as it is but they have so many responsibilities compared to most trolls. While it is generally accepted that at every distinct level of the Alternian blood caste system there are less trolls than the caste below it, the jadebloods are even rarer than the purplebloods, only the tyrianbloods having fewer members. In fact, the jadebloods receive around one new member every 6 sweeps on average while the tyrianbloods receive one every 12. Jadebloods also tended to stay within their nurseries, their jobs were mostly to watch over the grubs and to protect them from those who wanted to kill more than their allotted amount. This made it a rarity to even ever get to see one, let alone talk to them. The most special thing about them, however, was that they all possessed the genetic potential to become a rainbow drinker, a near indestructible, incredibly fast, extremely strong being who didn’t need to eat, drink, or breathe, instead only consuming the blood of their previous or own species, I never understood every aspect of them. In my youth, I had read a widely acclaimed series which heavily romanticised rainbow drinkers and what would happen if they were more integrated within society. This held a very prominent spot in my mind for about two centuries until the Doctor pointed out that I had surpassed the real rainbow drinkers in every way. Nevertheless, while my fantasies about being a rainbow drinker had faded, my respect for them only grew when I saw how they were expected to act by our society.

Even though I accidentally bumped into one of the matrons, we both bowed our heads and hurried along to continue our duties. I let my mind wander; scanning the life signatures of the grubs around me in a broad sweep, the spectrum eventually converged on a single colour, the colour of the blood of my target. He was an indigo blood but while he would have joined the aristocracy given enough time, he would create his own social class in due time. The indigo blood wasn’t far from where I had begun my search. He rolls around on his cot but is unnaturally silent. He doesn’t blink either and the rest of his body never seems to move much even when he makes the occasional movement. It’s always in a jerky manner, sometimes he twitches his head, other times, it’s a leg, but the movement doesn’t spread to the rest of his little body.

I carefully envelop him in my psionics before levitating him slowly into the air beside me; he completely freezes when his last little claw leaves the cot. I lock that portion of my power into this task before drawing my needles and directing time to my bidding. Kid’s got some education to go through, and it’s not going to be quick.

 

It’s not hard to find a nursery in this castle and the equipment is completely sufficient for my purposes. Rows of cots and assorted medical supplies are here, I guess the cots would be useful for the wrigglers. The future Grand Highblood is easy enough to brainwash once he stops paying attention and starts looking around. The wriggler’s mind is so easy to penetrate and the deep evolutionary traits like pain and fear are quickly cut off. I see them as little strings, and all of these strings, the components of the troll psyche, can be cut, snipped, ripped, misplaced, and covered up by other strings. I force feed him images of Doc. Scratch, the sight of this universe’s most powerful being is now part of his will and when I introduce it, I can see the corrupting influence of the Doctor. It starts bleaching these visualised strings white while an equal amount on the opposite side bleeds indigo, highblood insanity becoming an increasingly dominant part of his mindscape. The next part is a heavily edited version of my missions; I show him my most prominent deeds, the destruction of New Verdunn, the sacking of Visha’s Shadow, the murder of the past empress Sorrae, all of these from many generations past. Images of death and destruction, flames and corpses, collapsing buildings and the skies opening up to reveal rains of destruction, these all permeate his thoughts and simulate visions from the Doctor and I. His mirthful messiahs. It’s an efficient form of creating loyal soldiers, he’ll remember everything that I’ve just given him for the rest of his life, but he’ll never know that this is how we changed him. He won’t ask questions, he won’t have the will to act against us but he will be a force of chaos, of danger. And when we need to give him new orders, he’ll listen without wondering why he follows our commands. The Doctor’s solution to needing someone to be on Alternia at all times. I set one final telepathic command for the visions to keep replaying until I stop them before I send him to sleep; I put him into the cot closest to the door, just in case he starts doing anything too out of hand. He won’t forget these dreams.

Twenty three trips to and from Alternia later, I have collected a decent assortment of recruits, they’ll serve as the future Grand Highblood’s elite advisors and troops. When I first got to them, a peer into their minds reveals that all of these wrigglers are mentally unstable. In other words, the best options. Most of them are ceruleanbloods and higher but six of them are on the lower half of the hemospectrum, two brownbloods, three yellowbloods, and a limeblood. While the brown and yellowbloods will receive the same training as the highbloods, the limeblood is special. The Doctor has given me special orders for this one. He will be the closest advisor to the Grand Highblood, but to do this, his mind will have to be completely erased. A very small scale copy of the Doctor’s soul will be put in him, something to remind them all of what they’re doing as a contingency plan if they deviate from their missions. I put one of the Doctor’s cue balls with the wriggler before sending all of them to sleep.

 

My final target is a brownblood, one Rufioh Nitram. The list that the Doctor gave me points towards a forest where a secluded group of lowbloods who live far away from any highbloods. The details list something about them speaking a very distorted dialect of Alternian; technology levels aren’t high there either. Surveillance won’t be a problem at all. Most importantly, a colony of lowbloods means that I can go without disguise, after this mission, they won’t be able to tell anyone. My portal opens up inside a tree, instantly transporting a large section of branches and leaves into the Furthest Ring. There are a few other flying trolls around which is good for me, it means that I can float around without being overly conspicuous. The trees are an odd shade of teal, the wood blue. I’ve seen other forests where everything’s red but this is my first time seeing a forest like this and it’s oddly calming. I can see why the highbloods don’t come here, there’s nothing here to do.

I do a quick patrol of the entire settlement, it’s very small, something like a few hundred residents and the buildings are mostly improvised treehouses, nothing too sturdy. Rufioh is in a pen in one of the treetop dwellings, no one watches over him, they probably don’t even have lusii down here; in that case, everyone’s raised by another troll. He doesn’t make a noise when I pick him up with my telekinetics, instead, he stretches his little grub legs. Flick, flick, portal. I take out my list and tick of the last of the kidnapping targets, that’s at least one section complete. Just … a whole lot more to go. Fantastic. But before I actually start the culling, I have a loose end to finish up on.

 

After I drop little Rufioh off back at base, I portal onto the Doctor’s balcony, around twenty minutes after I last left it. I arrive just in time outside of the Doctor’s office to hear him finish up.

“Thank you for your cooperation, Condesce. My assistant will show you back to where we picked you up. Please await further instructions; otherwise, you may do as you please. We’ll be watching.” Wow, it’s the first time that I’ve ever heard his voice when it’s not directed at me and it’s … kinda exactly what I had already known. Even without telepathy and psychic shenanigans, the Doctor’s voice still has all those weird reverberations. Hollow is an adequate word to describe his voice.

The door opens and the Condesce strides through, carrying a jar of cookies underneath an arm. “Yo, mind takin’ me back to the castle?” she asks. The Condesce twists open the jar with a slender well-manicured hand before pointing the jar at me.

I raise an eyebrow in return.

“The Doc gave ‘em to me, not like I’m gonna be eating all of these.” She explains, she wiggles the jar again.

“I’ll consider your offer, in the meantime, we will be returning to the previous empress’ castle. However, I have repurposed it so that it is now my base of operations.” I push the jar away before leading her down the hallway.

“What did you do with it? I mean, don’t want to sound like I want to keep it, because I definitely don’t, but why do you need it?”

“I have certain projects that are in progress within the building, since you are now one of our agents; I suppose you can look around when we get there.”

“Sweet, don’t worry, Doc made it perfectly clear that I’m here to listen to you.”

This sudden acceptance of her new position seems odd, highbloods certainly don’t go down willingly, tyrianbloods are especially known to either die conquering or die in the progress of talking someone down. It’s an odd duality. She doesn’t even bother looking at the portal this time, keeping her eyes on me as she awaits my answer. “Of course, the castle is now mine to use, it is a safehouse of sorts, it can also serve as a warehouse, and its most important function is to provide a residence for any agents. You notwithstanding, of course. I take it that you have a palace that you will be building?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a few ideas. You guys doing anything with the other moon?”

“Not that I know of, what do you need from it?”

“Not much, just, y’know, all of it.” The Condesce bares her teeth in a grin.

“I see, that should not be a problem, might I now ask what you are using it for?”

“I kinda like the Doc’s idea of building a little thingy away from Alternia, much harder to take down than the previous empress’ as well.”

“May I offer a suggestion?” I ask.

“Fire away” she bites into another cookie as speaks.

“Please do not make your palace as much of an eyesore as the Doctor’s.”

Her eyes widen with laughter before slapping me on the back “Haha, I thought you were going to say something serious! Yeah, it’s not gonna be as trippy as the Doc’s. Fuck, you can visit if you want when I finish it just to make sure I didn’t fuck up the colour scheme.”

“Thank you.” I lead her into the nursery. “These are my projects.”

“Wrigglers? What are they going to do? Spill their blood at the enemy until they give up and just eat them?” she wonders out loud.

“They will be ready in a few sweeps, two of them specifically will spend some time with you.”

“And they’re keeping tabs on me? Thanks but no thanks.”

“Hardly, our communication with them is solely one-way, your secrets will stay secret, that was in your agreement, yes?”

“Yeah, sure. What are they going to do?”

“The purple one will lead the subjuggulators, the br-“

“Subjuggu-whatsits?” the Condesce interrupts.

“Have you heard of the mirthful messiahs?”

“Nope, should I have?”

“Not really, they are the idols of a very secluded cult.” I admit “Specifically, one devoted to me and the Doctor.”

“Have they ever done anything useful? Does the Doc get fuelled by belief or something?” she asks in a mocking tone.

“No, and no.”

“How about you? Are you dependent on their prayers?” She points the cookie jar at me again but I shake my head.

“I subsist on water and the screams of the dying.” I joke. “Anyways, the big purple one will grow up to become their leader. He will lead the subjuggulators to become a fighting force with no equal, well, in raw power at least. You will receive most of your orders through him if we choose to give you any.”

“Weird, what about the others that are in the same cot as he is? Those don’t look as bulky?”

She was right, maybe it was because the future Grand Highblood’s hormones were being meddled with too much, either way, he was becoming disproportionately large. I pulled another cot over to this one before cutting off the adjoining walls so that they had more space. “I believe that only this one is supposed to be this big, the others will be larger than most trolls when they are fully grown, just not goliaths.”

“Sounds fun, what about the little one near that end?” The Condesce wandered over to Rufioh, looking at him apprehensively. She was probably wondering why this one was separated.

“This one is a different type of soldier, he will play a role in shaping history.”

“And what does that have to with me?”

“Maybe you’ll recognise him when he re-enters your life, maybe you won’t. Either way, the Grand Highblood will advise you on how to deal with him.”

“You mean tell me what to do, right?”

“Somewhat.” I shrugged. “Apart from this, there really has been nothing changed in the castle, you are free to leave, now.”

“Hmm, you said we would get back two seconds after leaving, what time’s it now?” the Condesce yawned.

“Five minutes after you left.” I recalled, my internal timeline was always part of my active processes.

“Sweet, see you round.” The Condesce waved before turning around and exiting the room. Her footsteps were audible until she reached the throne room, I then felt her jump straight out the window, probably to get the Executor. He’s gonna be really pissed when he next sees me. Luckily, I can’t feel any futures where he and I meet ever again.

 

Rufioh’s reintroduction to society is probably the most fun part of the day. I hop into Rufioh’s quaint, little village, with all the unsuspecting and uncultured trolls. They all turn their heads towards my position as I phase into being, sending bright light all over my surroundings. I walk right to the centre of the town before sitting down, letting my hands start glowing as I focus my psionic energies there. A few of the trolls have stayed to watch what I’m doing as I stare blankly past them. It prickles my skin, like millions upon millions of tiny needles, all of them coming up from beneath my skin. The waves of energy come off me slowly at first, the red ripples causing faint “oohs” and “aahs” from the audience. The energy surrounding my hands becomes even more unstable, it starts to spread along my arms as it takes the shape of the flame from a bonfire. When I refocus my eyes, I can see that so much energy has been collected that tiny rocks and clumps of dirt have started floating upwards, carried by my psionics. I giggle. It looks weird and the lowbloods haven’t seen it. More have started to crowd around me. The closest lowblood slumps to his knees, clutching his nose as dark red blood starts flowing from it, he babbles incoherently as his mind starts tearing itself apart. Other trolls start collapsing as my energies intensify, the ones with psionic abilities are the most affected. I start to slowly move my hands together, the aura around me glows even brighter causing those who haven’t be incapacitated to run. The debris that gets sucked upwards gets larger and larger, the higher they reach, the more disintegrated they become. I can hear the villagers screaming to evacuate the village, they might have seen a psychic overload before. However, they won’t get far, not at all. Pushing my hands together is like trying to stick two magnets onto each other with the same side facing each other. Damned hard but completely possible. Soon enough, my palms finally touch and in that moment, my energy field collapses. A massive blast wave expands outwards with me at the centre. The ground is torn up and pushed along with it like a combination sandstorm and landslide ripping trees from roots and then lighting the instantly dehydrated leaves on fire, the wave turns into a force of nature. I can feel the little life signatures popping out of existence as they get erased and then become fuel for the fire. The energy dissipates after a good kilometre in every direction and when I start looking around, everything falls into three categories: crater, sky, and trees. Only one thing remains to be added to the scene to make it perfect, the little Rufioh Nitram.

**Author's Note:**

> I really want to remain dedicated to this series because I’ve seen some others that I really, really loved but never got to see their resolutions. I don’t want to disappoint you guys by not finishing up on this so don’t get too excited about this because each chapter takes a while to write and I have school and stuff. I’m finally getting back into writing after a bit of a hiatus and it’s lots of fun, seeya in the next chapter! ::XD


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